1. Habits of the Mind
Descriptions of the attributes that
human beings display when they
behave intelligently

2. Based on the work of Art Costa
 Signs of Intelligence, 1987, 1991
 When we teach for habits of the
mind, we are interested in how
students behave when they don’t
know an answer, their response to
questions and problems, the answers
not immediately known.

3. Wendell Berry:
 When we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work, and
when we no longer know which way
to go we have begun our real
journey. The mind that is not baffled
is not employed. The impeded
stream is the one that sings.

4. Persistence
 Efficacious people stick to a task until
it is completed.

5. Managing Impulsivity
 Effective problem solvers are
deliberate. They think before they
act.

6. Listening with Understanding and
Empathy
 Highly effective people spend an
inordinate amount of time and energy
listening.

7. Thinking Flexibly
 Flexible people can address a problem
from a new angle using a novel
approach.

8. Metacognition (thinking about
thinking)
 Intelligent people plan for, reflect on,
and evaluate the quality of their own
thinking skills and strategies.

9. Striving for Accuracy
 Craftsmanship is characterized by a
desire to reach a level of mastery,
flawlessness, and economy of energy
to produce exceptional results. They
produce products that match criteria
exactly.

10. Questioning and Problem Posing
 Effective problem solvers know how
to ask questions to fill in the gaps
between that they know and what
they don’t know.

11. Applying Past Knowledge to New
Situations
 Intelligent humans learn from
experience. They do not engage in
“episodic grasps of reality” nor treat
each learning event as separate and
discrete, with no connections to what
has come before or what may come
after.

12. Thinking and Communicating with
Clarity and Precision
 Language refinement plays a critical
role in enhancing a person’s cognitive
maps and ability to think critically,
which is the knowledge basis for
efficacious action.

13. Gathering Data through All Senses
 Intelligent people know that
information gets into the brain
through sensory pathways.

14. Creating, Imagining, Innovating
 Creative human beings try to
conceive solutions to prolems
differently, considering alternate
possibilities from many angles.

15. Responding with Wonderment and
Awe
 Efficacious people seek intriguing
phenomena.

16. Taking Responsible Risks
 Risk takers go beyond established
limits. They are uneasy about
comfort and live on the edge of their
own competence.

17. Finding Humor
 Laughing liberates creativity and
provokes such higher level thinking
skills as anticipating, finding novel
relationships, visual imaging, and
making analogies.

18. Thinking Interdependently
 Collaborative humans realize that
group contributions and group
thought increase intellectual power on
a subject.

19. Remaining Open to Continuous
Learning
 Intelligent people are in a continuous
learning mode. They are invigorated
by the quest of lifelong learning.